How to be passionate about anything when passion is something that many of us are severely lacking right now? I’m sure you remember it, though. That awesome feeling when you’re super excited about something; a happening, a relationship, a plan. So excited that it keeps you going even on the worst days.
The past couple years have truly tested us all, so it’s not surprising that many of us feel a bit hopeless. It’s hard to find interest in, let alone passion for anything when you’re mentally strained to the limit. But find it we must! It’s for our own wellbeing and health.
And when we remember that passion is an intense emotion that compels action we realise that in order to change our miserable circumstances, that is what we must strive for. Passion leads to an increase in motivation which leads to action.
No matter how sucky your life might be atm, if you can put some effort into at least one of the following 5 points, I guarantee, you will be just fine!
5 Things To Be Passionate About Right Now
If you feel like meh, can’t be bothered to even try, HEAR ME OUT! Play along just a little bit and let’s try and make you feel at least a bit better, okay?
Finding your passion can feel like an obscure activity for some, so let’s bring some clarity to this first.
- Start off by listing out some things that bring you joy and make you happy: it can be activities, topics, anything that distracts you from the daily ongoings.
- If you want to understand why those specific things bring you so much joy you can dig a little deeper by considering your life values and interests: how do they match the things you listed?
- Now that you have a vague picture of what brings you joy, it’s time to be open minded about it:
- how could you bring that joy to your life on a weekly or daily basis?
- Should you learn something new, try something different, or bring back something you used to do in the past?
Little by little you’ll notice your passion levels and motivation rise. And to get you started in practice, here are 5 things that I think we should all be passionate about at least to some extent at this day and age.
- Health & Fitness
This is a no-brainer; when you’re healthy (body and mind) your well-being is reflected on everything you do in a positive way. Whereas not looking after yourself can have disastrous results:
The increase in unhealthy lifestyle has had a direct impact on the increase in cancer diagnosis. Vice versa, paying attention to and improving your lifestyle can actually help to keep yourself cancer-free. Okay, truth be told, none of us can ever be completely cancer-free, but you know what I mean.
I’m sure we’re all well aware of the lifestyle that should ensure good health in the long run both mentally and physically. And who wouldn’t want to be passionate about their health? Basically you need to focus on 4 things:
Exercise ? Nutrition ? Avoiding toxins ? Manage stress
This doesn’t seem like too much to ask, does it? Even though we have to take responsibility for our own contribution towards our own health. In general we have it quite well in Europe because there are wide bans for toxic substances in, for example, food and makeup products.
In the States this is not the case so people there need to be quite observant on what they spend their money on. I’m sure none of you want to poison yourselves willingly.
Thou shalt not despair, though! There are plenty of applications available for checking products to easily figure out which should be left on the shelf if you value your health. Just read the bar code and the app gives you all the information you need to make good decisions for yourself.
In addition to exercising and making sure you eat healthy we need to be passionate about reducing our stress levels. There’s no denying that life today is very stressful. But there are some easy shortcuts to escaping one’s mundane responsibilities for a bit every day:
- Play music that puts you in a good mood and have a little dance (that’s exercise done).
- Breathe! Oh yes, just that; sit on the couch (or in the bathroom behind locked doors if you’ve got a family) and breathe deeply for 10-15 minutes concentrating on each breath. I use this method when I have trouble falling asleep.
- Cook something that you really like (pasta works every time!).
- Go for a walk, preferably to a garden or a forest because greenery has been proven to decrease stress. And I can guarantee it really works.
At the end of the day, it’s easy to be passionate about your life when you feel good, body and soul.
- Money Management
If living through multiple financial crises (the 90’s, 2008 and 2020) has taught me something, it’s that we should always have an emergency fund, a buffer for the bad day. This has also been obvious for me because my biggest dream was always to move abroad. And that shiz’s expensive!
It’s also always vexed me how the people who grow up with generational wealth are so smart and knowledgeable about all the money games, while us from lower income families are just taught to get as deep into debt as humanly possible as early as possible.
I think it’s time we flipped the game over: let’s be passionate about our finances! It’s never too late to start saving or investing, all you need is a budget. And then something on the side for the emergency fund for unexpected life events and costs.
Yes, I hear you, living costs are sky high and there’s nothing to spare. Isn’t there, though? Let’s get real here:
- how often do you shop or order something, anything online?
- how often do you eat out and what’s the price range of the places you tend to go to?
- is there actually nothing to spare because you’re so deep in credit card debt?
Fixing one’s finances requires some harsh self-reflection. And then it’s time to change the way we spend money. Learn some impulse control and understand the actual value of what you buy. Because money itself doesn’t have any value!
How to create a budget?
Once you’ve gained control of yourself and your wallet, it’s time to create a spending plan, aka a budget. There are plenty of budgeting applications available to help you with this. In case you’re more into doing things yourself, here’s a quick guide to get you started:
- Count how much money per month goes on rent/mortgage, utilities, possible debts and bills.
- Detract that sum from your monthly salary.
- Make an average calculation of your monthly food bill, the sum you spend on clothes/shopping monthly, and how much you spend on nights out.
- Detract these from your monthly salary as well.
- Once you’ve done this you’re left with the amount of money you have in your disposal per month.
- That’s your monthly budget for saving and investing.
You can read a more thorough guide on how to budget and save money here. Be passionate about your finances because that’s the base of the quality of your life.
- Self development
As we know the ability to learn is fast becoming the biggest and most important asset you can have, especially in the job markets. Artificial Intelligence (AI) is fast taking over the simpler, repetitive jobs but as fearsome as that may sound, there is no worry.
New jobs, the kinds of jobs that a robot simply can’t do, will appear. And creativity is something that we humans possess as a unique skill. So, why not be passionate about that?
To start your self development journey, the first step is to throw away all notions of any sorts of 5-year plans. In case you haven’t noticed, the world changes a lot in 2 years, so to bother thinking where you might be in 5 years is a complete waste of time and effort.
And once that’s done you can go back to the list we made in the beginning: what brings you joy and makes you happy. Those are great topics to get started with! Ask yourself what is your preferred method of learning. Is it by listening, reading or watching?
Then find courses and learning modules online to get your self development journey started straight away! The thing is, when we’re passionate about something we will find the time to get it done, whatever it may be. And with self development there’s no score card or levels to achieve. Instead, every little helps.
- Art & Creativity
I don’t know how it is where you live, but in a lot of countries governments are doing everything in their power to suppress all forms of culture and art. This is a massive shame because culture and art are actually a massive part of our wellbeing.
Art is specifically about evoking emotions, experiences and opinions through different means that we can perceive through different senses. It’s a physical and a mental stimulator. Are we any better than mindless robots if arts and culture are taken away from us?
But while creativity is trampled on as a service, they sure can’t take it away from us on a personal level! Let this be the time in your life when you let your creativity fly free and see what comes out of it.
- Dig out that camera of yours and run outside to photograph the world around us
- Or do the same thing but instead of a camera bring some paint and a canvas
- Take a look around your home or garden and plan a whole new design for one or both
- Book that dance class you’ve been wanting to check out
- Visit museums and book travels to find inspiration outside of that everyday box of life!
- Socializing
Continuing on the subject of modern technology, keeping up actual social relationships (as in, in person, not online!) is more important now than ever. Yes, there are chatbots already in existence which are almost like human beings. And that’s great, for example, for lonely people!
But I don’t need to show you a statistic to make it clear that real human interaction is healthier in every sense of the word in the long run. Why do we need to make friends and socialize in person, though? Why isn’t messaging online sufficient enough?
Because we are human beings. Love and the feeling of belonging are vital human needs and the thing that separates us from AI. To put it bluntly, we need meaningful relationships to keep our heads in order.
If you need a reason to be passionate about your social relationships, I’ll give you 4! These are just few of the things that meaningful social relationships add up to:
- They enforce happiness and self-esteem
- Decreases risk of anxiety, stress and depression
- Improves communication, cognitive and motor skills
- Establishes the sense of “self”
The last point is THE point. The “self” is the one thing that will always separate us from robots and animals. So, I think that’s a pretty damn good thing to be passionate about right now if nothing else is, wouldn’t you agree?
